Advocating for an end to LGBT deaths due to bigotry, and remembering those we have lost

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We’ve won at the 9th circuit, and we’re gonna win at the supreme court, the only thing in doubt is whether we win small or win big. California, or the entire country, and the court may wait until one of the DOMA challenges before they want to address the case of marriage equality.

It could however take a year before the court case is laid to rest, and I think that leaves us with an opportunity.

I agree with all the arguments about we shouldn’t vote on people’s rights, and how racial equal arrive equality would never have been achieved at the ballot box. But I’m also a great believer in narratives. California was the last great victory of NOM and it was effectively the half time in this fight. Things have slowly turned towards the right side ever since.

California is a special state, it’s one of the largest in the nation, and to many it’s a state full of hope and promise. A generation ago that’s part of the reason why our forebears went the to find a place to be safe. Our loss there was horrific and agonising and the day that foul odious and unconstitutional proposition is condemned to the dustbin of history the better.

However there’s an narrative that the haters have, and that’s one in which marriage equality is against the will of the people in every state. I want to end that narrative, and California is the place to do it.

I’m not a Californian and I don’t even officially count as an American, but I do have a stake in this fight as does every american who cares about their country. I want 2012 to be the year that California says “we were wrong to hate”.

It sounds risky I know, but the narrative from that point would be clear, and it would give the supreme court all the momentum they’d need to declare DOMA and the state bans unconstitutional.

Victory is in sight on this fight, and we can make a leap forward today.

When California legalized equal marriage in 2008, I really felt uplifted, one of the two homes of equality now recognized equality in law. I then heard rumblings about Proposition 8, and assumed unwisely that it would fail to get on the ballot, let alone pass. I had not reckoned with the forces of hatred and intolerance unleashed by conservative christians.

Prop 8 the musical really did catch the mood of shock and horror we felt, across the USA…

It felt as though at the moment the country was walking forwards into a brighter better future, we were yanked back, it honestly made me feel sick and despondent. However we had to pick ourselves up and start moving forwards.

My understanding of the California constitution, makes it cut and dried, the proposition was unlawful, it was a change to the nature of the constitution, and so should have needed 2/3rds majority. It should have been struck down on principle by every court of the land and i’d cheer that.

However I don’t think for once that’s the right way to go. I think we need to refight the battle we lost and win the war. The numbers ended up at 52 for 48 against, I think we can win, and we can win big.

Throughout the US every time its come up for a public vote, hatred and intolerance has won on the issue of marriage equality. This does not mean our time has not come, it means we have not out fought the religious right yet. While California is not the liberal utopia we’d love it to be, its still the home of San Francisco, our Vatican, our Mecca and our Shangri-la. So its time we take California back for equality.

We need to put marriage equality back on the ballot for 2012, we need it to be our issue, we need to fight the fire of the Mormons, the Baptists and the other haters with the water of the truth. We have the money, we have the power, and we can win.

I’m sure some would talk against this idea as risky, but I think we need an unequivocal victory against intolerance. We need an example to hold up when NOM comes out and says “We always win when it comes to the ballot”, and i think thats worth the risk to start the march towards marriage equality at the federal level.

We can win, we must win, and we have to step up to start the next battle.